All Rogues lead to Rome - getting there

We sailed from Zadar on Tuesday; arriving early to collect our tickets and await instructions to board the ferry. It was sad to say goodbye to the site at Biograd, that was home for a month.

In Rome we are staying at Camping Tiber Village, on Via Tiberina, just north of the Rome ring road.

Our ferry was a bit larger than the ones shuttling to the islands off the coast.

We had to wait until all the cars were loaded, and then at the last minute there was a hold up, and the vans were all shuttled to one side while a suspicious looking man with a beard and plenty of tattoos on display, went and gave one of the ship’s officers a small plastic bag with a quantity of green leafy material in it. I felt a bit like a spy taking his photograph, but it was impossible to resist. You'll just have to take my word for it that he gave him a bag of weed, my camera action wasn't fast enough for that.

I was wondering if we were all going to be searched for drugs at this point, and asked the officer what the hold up was for. “Oh just waiting for the last few cars to arrive; they are late” he said, “then we can let all the campers on board.” So, nothing to do with bags of cannabis then? Does the ship’s officer normally take delivery of some drugs to get them through the boring crossing of the Adriatic?

The trip from Zadar to Ancona in Italy takes a little over 6 hours, and the sea was very calm, so there was no need for Carol’s seasick remedies. I've never seen such a calm sea.

We got a bit lost getting out of Anconar docks, as they are huge, and we decided that we would stop at a camping car overnight park near the university in Anconar, rather than going down the coast. 

We found the parking area, and there was no charge for staying the night. Once parked, and settled in, the park quickly filled up with concert-goers, as there was a concert in the neighboring park. It did not keep us awake – we were dead tired, and asleep by 10pm.

Up the next day, we had a lovely drive to Rome; the Italian landscape so much more interesting and varied than Croatia. From the coast near Giulianova, we headed across to the west past Teramo, and went through a series of long tunnels underneath the impressive range of mountains, called gran Sasso D’Italia, with the peak of  Corno Grande at 2914m straight ahead.

After L’Aquila, one more long tunnel and we were through to the last stretch of autostrada before the complicated bit around Rome. We have finally got here.